Stosh

I hear that Colorado is planning a MB of it's own....

If you take a big screwdriver by the blade, you can actually hammer screws into wood, so don't assume the tool box is the answer to all your problems.

@@blw2 @@qwazse, qwarzse is correct, When I took over as SM the former SM became the CC. He understood the dynamics of what is necessary for a successful boy-led troop. He wanted to move the boys to boy-led, but didn't have the time or energy to pull it off. With the backing of him as CC we accomplished a ton of progress towards boy-led, patrol-method. My ASM was an Eagle Scout but had 3 boys in the troop and a 4th coming along in a year or so. He was the one who took over. The former SM now CC finally needed to move on and one of the parents took over. My tenure with her as CC lasted less than a month. The idea that the committee is there to protect the boy's program and the SM working on it was no longer in place. Exactly what transpired or conspired I am not sure, but the CC was basically steam rolled by a newbie DE and a UC I had never met in my life and I thought I at least could recognize most scouters in the council. If the complaints came from the boys it was only one boy and he was basically lazy and didn't want to work to the point where even his fellow scouts were on his case. 3 months prior to my removal, both the boys that Eagled that year presented me with their Mentor pins, so I'm thinking the boys didn't have much say in the process. I have heard that the troop is now basically even more adult-run than even before the other SM. If that's the program they want for their boys, the other troop in town would have been a perfect fit, but the adults chose to move on this troop instead. No worries. If the adults wish to take over the troop and can steam roll the CC, then there's nothing much a SM can do. They wanted a program that didn't fit the goals of the BSA, so moving on wasn't a big deal for me. The boys invited me in because they wanted boy-led, patrol-method, and the adults invited me out because they wanted adult-led, troop-method. In light of that dynamic, the boys lose every time. No problem, within a few months yet another struggling troop asked me to come talk about possibly taking over as SM. After talking with their committee they chose to disband the troop rather than go with the boy-led, patrol-method process. A few months after that a DE from another district approached me about setting up a new troop in an area of town that was void of a scout troop. After a year of organization and 1 year since chartering, we are dong just fine with a boy-led, patrol-method troop that is having a great time. No traditions to undo, just a clean slate and some really excited boys. Just a handful of boys, but they are quickly coming up to speed.. With our reputation for boy-led, patrol-method option, we are drawing boys, not just from the section of town the troop is located in, but from all sections of town. Half my boys come from areas that already have adult-run troops that they took a pass on. 6 old mildewed Eureka tents looking about 15 years old showed up in our scout room last week. The boys dragged them out, checked them out, found out what was needed and what needed mending and started making plans to go camping in them. It reminded me of Christmas morning..... Show me scouts that are excited about old hand-me-down tents and I'll show you guys that are ready for the next step. By the way, the comment I made was not, "Expecting too much from the boys". The reason given was I expected too much leadership from the boys. Big difference. Maybe the parents felt their little boys were growing up too much, to fast. I don't know, I just walked away and found greener pastures to play in. It has always been interesting that what I was doing was in the third session of Green Bar Bill's leadership training when they asked me to leave. We had already done the TLT training, but the boys wanted more.

Character is what a person does when no one is watching. The attitude of the adult is not dependent on the witness of others. Sometimes one does things just because it's the right thing to do.

Why not, customers do it all the time.

When your boy visits the troop, 1) Who invited them, the adults or the boys? 2) When you got there, who met you at the door, the adults or the boys? 3) After you got there, who did the talking, the adults or the boys? 4) Who ran the activities for the evening, the adults or the boys? 5) Who wanted YOU to join, the adults or the boys? 6) Who talked to your parents about you joining, the adults or the boys? 7) Who made sure you were welcomed and checked to make sure you had a good time, the adults or the boys? 8) Who invited you back to visit and maybe join, the adults or the boys? See any pattern developing here? When I was ASM of a troop another nearby troop's SM was stepping down. I let their CC know I was available but would run a boy-led, patrol-method troop. We had a cup of coffee. Then I had coffee with the SM, and finally the boys "interviewed" me. Somewhere along the way, someone noticed, because it was the SPL that called me up and asked if I would be their SM. Three years later the adults had me removed because I expected too much leadership from the boys. Lesson learned...EVERYONE needs to be committed to boy-led, patrol-method if it is going to work out, not just the SM. Now, with that being said, every parent needs to sit down with their boy and discuss whether or not he wants to be in which kind of troop. There are those out there that prefer the adult-led, troop-method of scouting where they just go and everyone else does all the work. There are plenty of troops that meet that criteria. But to some degree or another and with some purpose in mind, there are troops out there that are or are working on the boy-led, patrol-method approach. If your son prefers that, he may have to work on making it happen, but some troops are looking for boys with that attitude for their troop. Ultimate decision is your son's!

If the boys are not notifying their parents of up-coming activities, it's too bad. THE ADULTS ARE NOT GOING TO BAIL THEM OUT! Adult to adult communication destroys the boy's motivation to be an adult. Once the boys realize this is how it works, they tend to take responsibility for their lives or they miss out. Just like what happens in the adult real world we are getting them ready for. "Mom, Dad, When are you going to start treating me like an adult?" "When you start acting like one." (Of course they never show you what that is, it's supposed to just soak in over the years.) Well Scouting is where we train boys to do that. It's a combination of time and talent management, goal setting, leadership development and character building. I expect my boys to start acting like an adult while they are working on their Scout rank because that's when I start treating them like one. If your PL told you about an outing and you didn't take the responsibility to notify your parents, bummer. Maybe next time you can take a more adult like approach and keep everyone in the loop. We don't have a website, we don't have a newsletter, at this point of our new troop development, we only have our PL's working with their members and the members working with their parents. A couple of bumps early on, but things have smoothed themselves out quite well. When the boy-led, patrol-method thingy is used, it really does work quite well in spite of the chaos that "seems" to be the norm.

@@Eagledad @ In the church I served it was required that the out-going pastor leave the congregation, the community and when he would come back to visit, would notify the in-coming pastor of his presence in the area. I know the emotional bonds are a lot stronger for pastors than for SM's but the dynamics are pretty much the same. Even if there is a 2-3 month break, the out-going SM must remember his new position in the troop and work VERY hard to stay out of the way. My first parish had a founding pastor stay his entire career in that church. When he retired he became the chaplain of the local hospital (Town population 1200 people) He lived to be 104 years of age. Needless to say when I served in that parish, it was like he was the previous pastor and he had been dead for 25 years. I really felt sorry for all those pastors who served between him and me. I think the rapid turnover with the scouts there isn't enough time to establish the long term bonds that get established with a SM tenure. It took a lot of chutzpah to say what he did at coffee with Barry, but it is extremely important that it be done.

@ @"Q", It was a toss up between the two, loved Q's answer, but Bad Wolf actually answered the concern.

Maybe we ought to celebrate with a gala the most successful failure of the year....

I still don't know how to mark a post as best answer. Maybe I need yet another browser..... Maybe one shouldn't have edited the title quite yet.....

Well we finally agree on something!

Okay, just thought it was kinda strange. This must be one of those undocumented features of the new software. Okay, I opened this thread, and I don't see anywhere I can select best answer.

I noticed one of my posts was flagged as "Best Answer". Since when is my opinion any better than the next guys? Who makes this designation and how can they flag one as the best before everyone has had a chance to jump in on it?

I find it strange that a church would expect a Scout troop to contribute to the church. Of all the CO's out there, a church of all places should be aware of the purpose of non-profit fundraising. If money is given to the general fund of the church it can be spent anyway it wishes. However, if money is donated to a specific cause, that money is to be spent only for that cause. There is a big ethical issue here that your church seems to either be ignoring or is oblivious to. If a contributors were to make tax deductible donations to one program ministry of the church and the church spent it elsewhere? No way is that acceptable. In one of my parishes there was a piano fund for a new piano. This collected funds up over the course of a couple of years. Finally one of the members just went out and bought the church a new piano. Very nice, but every penny contributed to the piano fund was returned to the donors because it was not needed for the cause in which it was collected. As a new pastor coming into that congregation, I would halt that process immediately and return the money designated for Scouts back to the scout program. If that process has been going on for 25 years, then $7500 goes back to them. A little shenanigans with a CO on this might be acceptable for a few, but NEVER a church.

In my troops it's been the PL's. They receive all incoming notices pertaining to upcoming events and it is up to them to get the word out to their members. Any inter-patrol information is passed between PL's. Adults are notified of any needs such as rides, etc. after the patrols make their decisions on activities. Boys know the standard meeting is always Tuesday, whenever there's a 5th Tuesday in the month it is a COH. Other than that all other planning is done by patrols.

That book was not commissioned by the BSA, but it was selected for the BSA's Every Boy's Library series. It was the book that caught the attention of BSA and resulted in Fitzhugh's commission to write for the BSA.

Thanks from me and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at the local cafe. Thanks from your boys... Well, that's priceless. So on behalf of your boys, thank you for your service to scouting.

@@qwazse I didn't re-write early BSA history, I collect it and read it. Percy Reese Fitzhugh was commissioned by the BSA to write books for boys that exemplify the principles of scouting for boys to learn. It must have been what BSA was looking for because he wrote over 80 books and had one of them published as a series in Boys Life. Pee Wee Harris and Roy (Blakeley) are two of his main characters along with Tom Slade (the first book was made into a movie by Hollywood), Westy Marting, Mark Gilmore (Scout of the Air), etc. Many of the Buddy books looked at specific issues boy deal with in terms of Scout Law and ethics. Topics were covered from troubled youth being turned around by scouting to maintaining honesty and loyalty when faced with social pressures, using scoutcraft to enhance everyday situations, and the list goes on and on. Summer camp seemed to be the only time adults were present and summer camp lasted most of the summer if the boys could afford it. Getting to camp whether it be by boat, train or hiking, it was always without adults, but as a patrol. Pee Wee (Raven Patrol) and Roy (Silver Fox Patrol) always hung out together as friends even though they were not from the same patrol. Some of the Every Boy's Library series also included scout life as described by other authors. So if there be any idealism portrayed in today's world by me, it's not a re-write, it's just a good read to understand what Scouting was initially set up to be.

Just because they use the catch phrase "Servant Leadership" doesn't mean they understand it and even if they did, what they preach doesn't have to match with what they do. This is a clinical example of what goes wrong when you play with matches.

There's an old saying, something about a book and it's cover, thingy. I seldom pick a book because it has a good cover. I sure wish we had more councils like @@davemetrano has.

Not to worry... or should I say knot to worry, People must think I'm a hypocrite because I have a basic uniform and a bling uniform.

As an adult in the program for many years, taking on different roles, I have different uniforms. I have a bling encrusted uniform for special occasions and a very simple minimalist UC uniform when I visit other units or attend RT or doing something that isn't related to the unit I serve as SM. I have a basic uniform with knots, no pins for the "everyday stuff". Not everyone can afford multiple uniforms. I do believe it's important that some sort of uniform be worn if one is going to lead by example.

I would say the boy needs his health form and that's it. Parents driving their scout to a camp do not need a tour permit and if the lone scout gets into the provisional troop, then that should solve the leadership issue. The parent may need to pay for his/her attendance due to the fact that the 2-deep of the provisional may have already been met. This is all neat and tidy paperwork issue, but when it comes to practicality, how does a real lone scout get to go anywhere if there is no one to sign his tour permit? If son and dad want to travel half way across the country to attend a summer camp, do they need to keep with the # hours driven or miles covered per day? I don't believe a scout in his parent's car does not need the permit anymore than a parent driving their son to any other activity in BSA.